Sol: Research branch Iota – Cerberus
by reokumaurer
Summary: A ME story base with the resulting Fem/Shep and Garrus V. romance with OC input. Madness will ensue with this colourful new addition. Give us a chance
1. Prologue – the betrayal

**Sol:- Research branch Iota – Cerberus **

Prologue – the betrayal

"Cut the crap, I want to know what's going on. Right. Now."

Shepard had had enough, she had already nearly died more times than fighting Saren since being brought back. And her so called 'boss' was providing nothing but cryptic answers.

"The deception was necessary; when we could learn much about our enemy."

The Illusive man brought the butt of the cigarette to his lips, drawing yet another drag from the tobacco filled stick that occupied his fingers.

"It was a trap, but would you have squandered this opportunity?"

Shepard gritted her teeth and snapped back at him.

"You could have at least told me, you say I'm important but you sure try hard to get me killed."

The Illusive man smirked releasing the inhale of smoke he had previously taken into his lungs.

"It was a necessary risk for the information we acquired, tipping you off could have told them in a number of different ways. I wouldn't have sent you in there if I think you couldn't handle it, despite the risk it paid off. EDI just confirmed our suspicions. The Collector home world is beyond the Omega 4 relay, they seem to use an identify friend-foe system which allows them to pass through the relay."

Shepard was exhausted after running through the ship at top speed just to make sure she wouldn't die by some bugs' hands again; even if they were the species which helped them achieve everything they have now, in terms of intergalactic travel. And now after that she had to deal with this bullshit her patience was wearing thin.

"I was just on the Collector ship! Why didn't you say anything about their IFF!?"

"As I said EDI just confirmed it."

The Illusive man took one last inhale before stubbing out the last of his cigarette.

"There was no way you could have retrieved the IFF before escaping, but we have options."

Mr Illusive grabbed his crystal tumbler swirling the ice within the bourbon, before drinking it down swiftly.

"An Alliance science team recently determined that the great rift on the planet Klendegon was actually an impact crater from a mass accelerator weapon. A very old mass accelerator. I sent a team to find either the weapon or it's target; they found both. The weapon was defunct but helped us determine the flight path of the intended target, a thirty-seven million year old derelict Reaper."

Shepard started tapping her foot impatiently while hearing all this,

"I'm only going to believe you 'cause I'd doubt you'd use the same trick twice."

"It's no lesser risk we lost contact with our team there a short while ago, but I'll forward more information on that to your terminal, we have a more pressing issue at the moment."

"More important than Collectors and Reapers, I find that hard to believe."

The Illusive man lit up another cigarette and took his first inhale as Shepard was speaking.

"You may not think so but it could hinder our progress later if left unassessed. Our research base on the rock Pluto known as Iota has gone dark, with no research updates in the last twelve hours; we would like you to go and "check" on the current situation."

Shepard had to resist telling joker to lose the signal like she had also resisted so many times with the council.

"Why can't you just send one of your other cell's to check it out, I know you have more."

"We have, but unfortunately we have had no reply from them since we dispatched them. Hence why it's now being brought to your attention, we don't want to risk any more resources." "Fine just don't expect me to be happy about it, I'll contact you again once we know the situation."

The Illusive man took a nice long drag and released it from both his mouth and nose, after he gave a smirk which seemed to show he knew more than he was telling which was nothing unusual.

"I'll forward the co-ordinates to Joker, I look forward to knowing what you find there."

The Illusive man cut the channel before Shepard could say anything more. Shepard spoke over the com for Joker to head straight there so they could get it over with, but not before bashing a dent into the wall near the door out of her anger.


	2. Awakening

**Me:- See I told you I would get you into Fan fiction ^_^**

**Nathan:- No you did not ¬_¬ I'm only helping you with your idea.**

**Me:- Then why are we using your OC? I could have just done a normal one.**

**Nathan:-...Shut up.**

**Me:- Hehehe We don't own Mass Effect or any of it's characters/story. But we do own the OC and my Shepard personality so no takey =P. Enjoy.**

**Chapter I**  
_Awakening_

"Dr. Chilos, is the subject still sedated?"

An aged voice inquired, emitting from an human male clearly in his mid sixties, an orange glow revealing the age of the scientist even more so. The terminal before him revealing life signs, documents ageing back to the first contact war, all of which involving the experiments of crossing DNA strands to enhance the human body to better the human imperfections. The terminal before him featured a readout of life signs and documents dating back to the First Contact war, the results of experiments in DNA modification to enhance the human body and eliminate its imperfections.

"Yes Gabone, the subject is under and stable; records suggest we increase the sedative dose each time this subject comes out of stasis storage-"

The young feminine voice was cut short of further voicing the obvious concern that hung upon her every word. The voice- young and feminine this time- was swiftly cut off, preventing the owner from voicing any more concern. That same aged vocal pattern erupted, showing signs of tiredness and annoyance.

"-Further increasing the sedative dosage would have risked this specimen; we're already injecting him with enough to keep a horse down for three hours. Any higher and we'd risk rendering him comatose and that is something we can't afford to do with the last subject from Group Alpha."

His eyes glanced from the terminal to the medical officer, his tone very 'matter of fact' and featuring the exasperation that comes with repeating the same phrase again and again.

"Is that clear, Dr. Chilos?"

The medical officer seemed reluctant to respond at first, glancing toward the human-sized container placed upon the examination table.

"Understood Administrator..."

She was very young in comparison to Gabone, in her mid to late twenties; her dark straightened hair covered her eyes from his as she glanced away, hiding herself from his gaze. She looked towards the container, a hand subconsciously rising to the Cerberus symbol imprinted upon her uniform.

"Very good... Shall we begin the log entry for Project Pheonix, Alpha?"

Gabone uttered as he continued to bring up files, highlighting particular text and paragraphs while looking for patterns in previous life sign stability.

"All the sample extraction equipment is prepared and ready to begin Administrator."

Dr. Chilos replied monotone, more routine rather than actual opinion.

"Administrator Gabone, facility Iota, upon dwarf planet Pluto, log entry 137, cycle 1408. Subject 003:"Leos" of Project Phoenix Alpha, which will now be referred to as Subject Leos for the rest of this log entry, is sedated and has been removed from stasis fields for thirty-two minutes; Subject Leos is stable and ready for retrieval of samples."

Gabone took a moment to bring up interior footage of the containment cylinder, which was dark but a clear enough image to tell it was a humanoid male within. Gabone frowned, his brows furrowing at the display as he sighed heavily.

"It appears that the observation light has been damaged, likely during transport or the time period between examinations. Remind me to replace that before we put him back into stasis Dr. Chilos."

The young woman nodded as she moved away from the general area.

"Yes sir, I'll retrieve the required supplies."

Gabone glanced over to her before returning his attention to the still recording log entry.

"As stated in previous log entries, Leos has been growing harder and harder to keep stored in this manner, and soon we'll have to consider containment methods for Leos as a temporary means while he is conscious. This should be seen as a way to stop Leos from growing even more immune to the sedatives we are using upon him and to better our chances of not losing this specimen to expiration."

Dr. Chilos returned with the replacement fittings for the inner monitoring systems of the cylinder, placing them upon the counter top as she accessed her own terminal. As she began the table upon which 'Leos' was placed burst into activity, a series of injection syringes rose on mechanical arms and inserted themselves into the ports within each side of the container.

"The Illusive Man has ordered that we revisit these old experiments, in an attempt to find perhaps something more preferred in terms of enhancements rather then looking at the Reapers' technology... Seeing the reports of Saren, I can't say I blame him for trying to have a backup plan..."

Gabone trailed off for a moment, pondering what sort of implants must have been installed to cause such drastic changes.

"We could simply look at the project results for our field operatives, but I believe we are trying to find something more... potent..."

Gabone glanced toward Dr. Chilos and once he had nodded his approval to start retrieving the samples, the old man quickly turned back to the terminal.

"We will begin from the bottom, extracting samples from Leos and comparing them to the other Specimens of this project. With some close examination perhaps we can isolate more of the key genes we were unable to twenty years ago in order to allow the improvements while sidestepping the harmful mutations; we don't want a repeat of what happened to specimens 004 through 008. Administrator Gabone, signing out."

While Gabone finished the log entry, Dr. Chilos began the sequences for the extraction. Some of the tools took blood samples, others were taking hair, skin, and fluid samples. While Dr. Chilos continued to focus upon the terminal, Gabone turned within his chair, looking rather frustrated. It was obvious he didn't like digging through past experiments and wanted to work on something more 'recent'. After a moment Dr. Chilos moved from her terminal to look to the table: the retrieval containers were empty. She looked to the terminal again and saw that it reported the function as finalizing; glancing from one to the other, she checked each arm with its respective sequence.

"That's odd... We haven't received any of the samples."

Gabone looked up from his daze as he scrawled, glancing from the container to Dr. Chilos's terminal as a questioning hum vibrated from his dry lips. After a moment he rose from his seat, stepping towards the examination table.

"Hm... it must be a fault with the old equipment. They really should have kept this facility up to date. Now were going to have to open it-"

As these words left his lips he began running his hands over the container, looking for the release catches.

"-S-Sir! We shouldn't open its container! That would be breaking our safety protocol, we should call one of the engineers and-"

Before Dr. Chilos could recite any more of their contracts health and safety procedures Gabone scoffed at her.

"-And waste more time here than is needed? He is sedated, is he not? If you have done your job properly then there is no danger here. Now get me the codes to Subject Leos's container, Rebecca. I won't ask you again."

With a reluctant glance, she turned away from Gabone and toward her terminal, scanning file names while muttering under her breath,

"I'm gonna get fired for this... I'm gonna get fired for this..."

Gabone rolled his eyes, hearing her quite wellwithin the relatively silent lab. He looked towards the container's keypad, now standing on the opposite side of the table from Dr. Chilos. After a moment he glanced up, she had moved to the side, revealing the document to him with her arms crossed as she looked towards him.

"I'm not going to be connected to this Administrator. It's your choice."

Gabone chuckled slightly, shaking his head as his gaunt fingers tapped against the keypad.

"When you've been working for Cerberus as long as I have, you know when to take short-cuts."

Gabone didn't show any sign of fear as the air pressure released, the catches flicking open. He then placed his hands on the table as the container opened fully upon its automated systems.

"At least these systems work properly..."

Dr. Chilos glanced over as the container opened towards her, and her eyes darted towards the person inside as her lower lip bobbed slightly in disbelief.

"I have seen the files... And the footage... But seeing it first hand-"

"'It' has a gender Dr. Chilos. He may no longer look human, but he's one of the more civilized in this line of specimens. Now keep your eyes on his status while I retrieve the samples."

Gabone muttered as he began separating the inner cylinders from the drips, first retrieving the blood samples as he began to speak.

"You seem startled by this Rebecca, have you not seen the Collector data?"

Dr. Chilos looked from Leos to the ground, gripping her left arm with her hand.

"I joined Cerberus to help humanity... But to see this... To see what this organization has done, I-"

"-It's for the sake of humanity that we do this. All the other galactic races have some sort of edge over us. It's only fair that we seek to even the playing field."

While he spoke Gabone had retrieved the last of the samples, prying it from its position between the drip and the tubing to the outer receivers. Gabone's practiced eye glanced towards f Leos' face, seeing no major change or disturbance as he pulled back from his lowered position. Tapping a button on the keypad, the container began to close slowly as its older mechanics began to ready the action. Gabone smirked to himself as he looked towards Dr. Chilos, and she returned the gaze.

"You see? In and out again with no major incident... it would have only been a greater waste of time to contact the engineering unit."

With that said he chuckled and turned towards his own terminal, samples in hand.

Dr. Chilos sighed heavily in relief, seeing Leos disappear from sight as she turned away to look to her terminal. As she began to move she heard a loud thump, and the sound of the machine struggling to finalize its action echoed throughout the lab. She quickly turned back to the table, as did Gabone, and watched as clawed fingers pried at the outside of the container, forcing the lid open once more.


	3. Reconnaissance

**Me:- *Doing happy dance***

**Nathan:- What are you doing?  
**

**Me:- Dancing cause how many views we got in just a few hours. *carries on dancing*  
**

**Nathan:- You are far too happy about this.  
**

**Me:- Meh =P You'll understand in due time soon you'll be doing the same.  
**

**Nathan:- Not bloody likely.  
**

**Me:- *still dancing* We don't own Mass Effect or any of cameo characters/story. Anything which isn't in the original is ours and my Shep's Personality too!**

**Enjoy!  
**

* * *

**Chapter 2**

Reconnaissance

The shuttle started to descend to Pluto's atmosphere, Shepard had decided to bring Garrus and Grunt with her for if this was a dangerous experiment then she would need heavy hitters to take it down as quickly as possible; she was not taking any more chances with the Illusive man's cryptic information.

"Any idea's on what to expect Shepard?"

Garrus asked while making sure his scope for his snipe was nice and ready for any kind of nasty encounter they could get into while down there.

"Not a clue, all I was told was to find out what stopped the previous team from reporting. He also sent me a message just before we left; saying 'Don't kill anything out of the ordinary'."

"So typical cryptic Cerberus info then, heh, just like the old days huh Shepard?"

Shepard gave a small laugh and shook her head as they started to arrive at the drop-off point,

"Well, if they try to attack us don't hesitate to kill them. I don't care what the Illusive man thinks about it."

The shuttle landed a few clicks from the facility as to not alert any external defences. As they left the shuttle they could already see in the distance a few crashed shuttles; clearly taken down by external defences.

"Good thing we decided to land away from the facility, otherwise...this experiment would be dead pretty damn quick."

As they approached the wreckage they couldn't see any sign of survivors, other than a few footprints leading into the facility.

"Be on your guard." Grunt cocked his shotgun ready,

"I'm always ready Shepard."

Shepard took the lead and carefully navigated around the facility, but they had yet to run into anything. Everything was too quite.

The squad used this opportunity to take off their helmets and investigate one of the labs nearby which seemed to contain a few dead scientists. Shepard hoped that at least some information would give them a hint as to what they were dealing with. As Garrus and Grunt looked over the scientists to see what killed them Shepard looked over some scattered data-pads, unfortunately most were locked or encrypted but there was a slightly damaged one which seemed to still hold some information, Shepard set it so she could listen to the recording but due to the damage some of it cut off.

"Bzzzz-Gabone-Bzzzzz-Proj- Phoenix Alpha.-Bzzzzzz"

There was only more static nothing other than the name so far,

"Well~...so much for thinking this was going to be-"

The recording started to continue without much static problems maybe now she would get somewhere.

"Specimen 001- 003 have shown no signs of neural decay, they are still able to-Bzzzzzz-before the experiments began. However Specimen 004-008 have shown feral behaviour. We will try to keep all-Bzzzzzzz-for further experimentation. End log."

"Well this just keeps getting better and better."

Shepard said sarcastically before leaving the data-pad and went to investigate the scientists.

"So what happened to them?"

"It looks like they were shot and who ever did it kept doing it long after they were dead too, someone clearly doesn't like Cerberus."

Shepard shook her head again this was getting ridiculous, could someone have broken in? Was this an outside assault or an inside job?

"Well I can't say I'd blame them, but these wounds don't add up with what we should be dealing with. Really they should have been ripped apart from what I heard from that log anyway; something doesn't add up."

Garrus gave Shepard a look of annoyance which he was sure she had too,

"You don't think..."

"Another trap? Who knows, I wouldn't put it past him."

Shepard told them to move out and to keep close, they encountered more rooms with both Cerberus scientists and soldiers shot to hell and back, nothing out of the ordinary in those rooms accept the dead bodies so they kept moving.

As they neared the centre of the base they started to hear gunshots. They took cover around the next corner and looked around it to see what was going on.

"Take them out anyway you can! Use Disruptor ammunition!"

At first Shepard thought they were talking about her squad but then she saw them open fire on some LOKI and YMIR mechs,

"Seems like we have an internal struggle to deal with."

"We could just let them deal with it until they die, would be amusing."

Grunt gave a small chuckle at his idea.

"As much as I would love to do that Grunt I don't leave people to die; Cerberus or otherwise. Now lets go show these guys how to fight!"

Shepard and the others ran to take cover with the operatives, only three of them were still alive.

"Holy shit! Shepard? What are you doing here!?"

Gun fire still kept coming and hitting the over-turned tables they used for cover.

"I'm here to save your asses and find out why your here. Illusive man's orders."

"We could use all the help we could get, I'll explain after we take care of these mechs."

Shepard pulled out her sniper and made sure it was loaded.

"Well let's get to it then."

Shepard let Grunt get all close and personal with his Claymore shotgun while laughing like the crazy Krogan he is.

"Garrus use Overload whenever you can, help us bring down there shields!"

"Copy that!"

Shepard concentrated on head shots on the LOKI mechs and used Incinerate on the YMIR mech. A grunt was heard as one of the operatives went down by the machine gun of the YMIR.

"Take that thing out now!"

"I AM KROGAN!"

Grunt charged a group of LOKI mechs before hitting the YMIR mech from behind. Surprisingly enough it turned around as though it was going to attack, it stared at Grunt for a moment before turning back around to continue it's assault. Shepard gave a confused look in Garrus's direction and he just shrugged as if to say 'I have no idea either'. As the confusion of the mechs activities put the group to pause for a moment a LOKI mech managed to get a shot at one of the other operatives, stunning him. Giving the mechs enough time to gang up on him and devour him in thermal rounds.

"Damn it we can't lose the whole squad. Grunt get to a safe distance, I'm frying these fuckers!"

Shepard put her sniper away and pulled out the Arc Projector, she told the last operative to stay down as she charged the Arc to hit the last remaining mechs. Luckily Grunt and Garrus had done a great job at getting their shields down. The mechs only took two shots from the Arc to bring them down but then the YMIR mech was set to explode.

"Take cover!"

They all took cover over by Shepard and the last Cerberus operative as they waited for the heat of the explosion to pass them so they knew they were safe.

"Thanks Shepard, we all would have died if not for you."

"Save the thanks for once we're all out of here, what were your orders?"

The operative took out a modified gun to show Shepard and her squad.

"We were each given one of these and told to sedate the experiment and bring it to a new secured location."

"That's it? You weren't told what to look out for?"

The operative moved to the locked door the mechs were guarding and was trying to hack in,

"We weren't told much else other than it's vital for our research and mustn't be destroyed if we could avoid it."

Shepard went to stand next to the operative who had just hacked the door and was about to walk through when Shepard stopped him.

"Is everyone else on this base dead?"

"We assume so, those mechs were shooting at anything that moved."

Shepard thought back to the fight just a few minutes ago and remembered how it ignored Grunt like he wasn't a threat at all.

"But that can't be right, it stared one of my squad down and didn't even try to attack him."

The operative opened the door to advance, while not looking ahead and turned back to Shepard.

"Well the experiment could have tampered with it so it would-"

but before he could finish a shot was fired right through his head, a clear death shot. As he dropped to the floor Shepard readied her SMG and targeted the LOKI mech which killed the last Cerberus which could have helped them. The mech seemed like it examining them, and made no moves of hostility. Eventually the mech said 'No threats detected' and continued walking down the next corridor. Shepard turned back to Garrus who seemed just as confused as she was, but before she could turn to Grunt he had already charged past her after the mech.

"Grunt! Goddamn Krogan and their honor."

Shepard said out loud as she ran after Grunt with Garrus close behind.

"Makes you almost miss Wrex huh?"

This made Shepard smile, her and Wrex got on great on the first Normandy; him and Garrus were probably the two she spoke to the most. Once they caught up with Grunt they could see him trying to crush the mech with his foot, he had never been this aggressive before.

"You dare to insult my honor!"

The mech kept repeating 'No threat detected' even when it was trying to be crushed by a Krogan, something then clicked for Shepard, they had only found Cerberus dead; and they only seemed to be targeting them during the last fire fight.

"They are only set to target Cerberus..."

"What?" Garrus looked at Shepard wondering what she was thinking,

"Think about it, we 'technically' aren't part of Cerberus, and this facility seemed older than other ones so they wouldn't have had an update on who under who."

Shepard then heard a gunshot and saw Grunt had shot the mechs head off with his shotgun.

"Hmmmmm, that was fun."

Shepard couldn't help but actually laugh out loud at this comment,

"Whatever you say Grunt but we have a job to do, so no more chasing mechs which ignore us. At least until we have found what we came here for if you want to kill them on the way out though, well you're more than welcome to."

A smile appeared on Shepard's face and Grunt's slowly followed with a booming laugh.

"Ha, I like the way you think Shepard."

They soon approached the main operations centre, where the said experiment was supposed to be kept.

"Do you really think it would be in here Shepard? That's where it has been kept all this time don't forget."

Shepard started to hack the door, and turned her head back to Garrus,

"Well if it's not then we might find someone alive who could tell us what the hell happened."

Garrus's mandibles twitched in reply "Hm...I suppose."

Shepard was nearing hacking the door,

"Okay both of you be ready."

The lock for the door finally turned green and Shepard quickly grabbed for SMG before opening the door. Once the door opened they saw two figures one was on the floor and appeared to be a young women wearing a Cerberus uniform while the other was seated on a seat with his back to the group, he was shirtless and only wearing pants from what Shepard could tell.

"Are you both alright?"

A hand from the male arose and gave them pause.

"One moment...Let me finish this line of code for the mechs."


	4. Meeting

**Me:- Phew we finally got the chapter finished...we um...both got a little side tracked ^_^'**

**Nathan:- 'We'? You mean you with your new Dating sim RPG's you've been playing.**

***cover his mouth with my hand ***

**Me:- No no no...It was just a busy time of year is all...¬_¬ although you can say much you playing your he-**

***nathan pulls my hand off and stuffs me in a bag***

**Nathan:- we don't own anything other than the OC's and original story idea's we just mess with the Mass Effect universe.**

***screaming muffles coming from bag* **

**Nathan:- Oh shush **

* * *

Chapter 3

Meeting

Shepard lowered her gun slightly out of confusion and turned to give her two companions a look before turning back towards the man in question. "Excuse me?"

The male finished typing on the terminal and turned his chair so he could look at the new intruders. "You know the mechs which were firing at Cerberus as you came through the door?" Shepard holstered her SMG and made a signal for her companions to keep theirs out, she still didn't know if she could trust this man.

"Then why the hell were they only targeting Cerberus? You need special clearance to even get anywhere near those mech codes."

The male smirked but Shepard couldn't make out much of his features because the poor lighting from the power starting to fail,

"You'd be amazed at what you can get access to when the Administrator forgets to "Log out" of his console." The male emphasised 'log out' with air quotations, while turning into a full frontal view with his seat. Shepard had to do a double take at the man before noticing his facial features, his face was fairly human other than his nose which seemed human but had a feline likeness to it. Then there were his eyes while again human the irises were slit, but the colour is what stood out, they were a sharp ice blue which could probably be seen in total darkness. His hair was chestnut brown and quite long and shaggy. Shepard then noticed movement on his head and saw what appeared to be feline ears but rounded instead of pointed. Again Shepard noticed movement but directly behind him very close to the seat, she then noticed it shift back and forth. It was...a tail? Shepard stood there in silence for a while before Garrus broke the silence.

"What the.."

"Oh this is just great! More Cerberus secrets! First Reapers, then Collectors and now a weird mutant human hybrid, what next!?" As Shepard said this she turned around and threw her hands up in the air before turning around and pointed at the 'thing' in question.

The male then feinted being wounded, "Ouch, manners cost nothing ya' know?"

Grunt thought his would be a good time to interject, "I say we eat it." While a grin came across his face. The male threw up his arms, "And the insults just keep coming!"

He then swiveled in his chair to face the terminal again, to continue typing. Shepard stormed up to the chair and turned the male back around so she was looking at him square in the eyes, is this really the experiment the Illusive man wanted back so badly?

"Look you! You need to answer my questions right now, or it won't end well for you." Shepard said indicating her head back towards her crew mates who had there guns primed and ready on either side of the target. The male seemed rather absent minded about the whole situation before looking back at Shepard, "And those questions being...?" "First. What's so valuable about you? Second. What the hell happened here? And thirdly. What the fuck are you?" The male gave a sigh and motioned his hand towards the terminal near the Cerberus scientist, "The files on that console should answer most of your questions about me. As for what happened here, well..."

-*Flashback*-

_The containers continual audible struggle echoed through the lab as the hand began to push it open fully, breaking the mechanism, the body raised from its container as he looked about the lab, the drips creating tension with his movements as they broke free from the tubing. Gabone had placed the samples into a portable container at this point and had already darted from the lab, shutting the door behind him as he went to leave the facility as quickly as possible, leaving Dr. Chilos behind with Leos having broken out of containment. He lowered himself out from within the container as Dr. Chilos stood well back from the table, her mind racing as she attempted to recall what to do in such a situation, She looked towards the terminals as they now showed obvious warnings. He groaned slightly before heading towards Gabone's terminal, leaning against the table as Leos attempted to gather himself from the disorientation of having just gained consciousness._

_After a few moments he was able to trace back what Gabone had done, having sent an alert notice to the Illusive Man; this only meant that Leos will be dealing with Cerberus troops that will be here to contain him soon. He started to search through the Console for access to the mechs upon site, as he was attempting to locate the mechs command coding, Dr. Chilos was attempting to move closer, trying to sedate him while she presumed he wasn't paying attention to her. _

_"I wouldn't do anything aggressive if I were you... I wouldn't want to hurt ya." As he spoke this seemed to put Rebecca off slightly, as though she wasn't expecting him to speak at all._

_She stumbled back slightly and lent against the examination table, in this time Leos had gotten to work on the code, altering it as quickly as possible as he'd sigh heavily upon the hasty completion. _

_"That'll do for now..." He mutter to himself as he quickly set up the code to be placed within the systems input for the mechs. He then turned away from the terminal to see a rather scared looking Dr. Chilos, he would sigh heavily before walking towards the lab entrance. "There is nothing to worry about... you can leave if you want." He uttered as __he opened the door, only to have the sound of gunshots and a body of a scientist fall in front __of him. He blinked a few times before looking back towards Rebecca, carrying a rather sheepish grin upon his face. "Or maybe not..." he pressed the button to close the door again and turned back towards the Terminal. _

_"Its okay! I can fix it, just gonna need some time-" more gunshots were heard as spoke up. "Fix it!? There are people being killed out there! What did you do!?" Leos sighed heavily as he continued to try and edit the code, fingers rapidly rushing across the keys as he would answer. "I did what I needed to, I'm not being stuck in those bloody tubes any longer, heck I don't even know what year this is any more..." With this, Dr. Chilos stepped back from Leos and bumped into the table once more, falling to her knee's as she tried to think about what to do. "This isn't happening... this whole things just a horrible nightmare..." "If this is the nightmare I'd hate to know what I have been having for the past number of years!" Leos chuckled slightly nervously as he continued to relentlessly attack the keyboard, entering line after line of code, bringing up and searching for record files of the staff upon the site._

_-*End Flashback*-_

"Then not long after you and your 'company' came in." Shepard still was giving the male a look which meant she was sceptical about the story, Shepard shifted slightly to look beyond Leos and looked at the last remaining scientist who appeared to be in shock, "Keep an eye on him while I see what this person knows." Garrus gave her a nod before allowing Grunt to switch positions with Shepard. "And no trying to eat him Grunt." Shepard said before making her way to the scientist.

Leos looked at Grunt, then his shotgun then back at Grunt. He gave a sheepish smile towards him, "So...Compensating for something?" Grunt gave a growl while Garrus shook his head slightly, ~_This guy isn't acting very much like an experiment, very unlike the one's from 2 years ago~ _Garrus thought before turning his full attention back to Leo's hoping Shepard wouldn't take very long; otherwise there would be a dead experiment to hand back.

As Shepard approached the scientist she seemed in a trance and didn't really acknowledge Shepard's presence, she knelt down to the scientist's level and tried to look her in the eyes. "I'm Commander Shepard, I'm here to help you. Can you tell me your name miss?"

The scientist looked up and Shepard could see streaks down her face from when she had been crying. "Chilos...Dr. Rebecca Chilos."

"Rebecca, I just spoke to that...man...over there and he told me what happened here, I need to make sure his story matches up so I need you to remember what happened." Rebecca took a shuddering breath and shook her head slightly,

"I...I'm not sure...I don't think I..." Shepard placed a comforting hand on her shoulder,

"I know it's not easy but you will help everything come full circle. We need the full story so we know how to go ahead in this situation."

Chilos gave a hesitant nod before giving her version of events which seemed to have started before Leos was conscious. She recalled the lab scene and Leos events almost word for word. "I...I warned him...but still he...he..." Shepard helped Rebecca stand up. "It's not your fault, don't blame yourself." Rebecca nodded before Shepard told her to wait until she filled in her squad.

As Shepard made her way back over she noticed Grunt looked like he was ready to rip the experiments head off. "Garrus, Grunt go and wait near the entrance, just need to tie up a few loose ends and I'll meet you there." "You sure Shepard?" Garrus asked with concern in his voice, "I'll be fine, just make sure the shuttle's ready to go." Garrus nodded his head and took a reluctant Grunt with him.

"It seems your story checks out, but that still leaves the problem of what to do with you."

Shepard said while moving to stand in front of Leos. "From what I can see you have three choices, the first is I hand you over to the Illusive man and carry on with my mission as planned. Second is I can leave you here and you can be a hermit for the rest of your days here until you run out of resources. Or thirdly you can join me on my quest to stop the Collectors, I could always use another tech on board...So...What will it be?"

Shepard crossed her arms awaiting his answer. Leos thought it over for a moment before looking at Shepard, "Hm...well I want to stick it to the Illusive man for having me here all this time, although staying here would only cause more deaths. So I guess that means I'm going with you, as long as I don't end up on that lizards menu."

He finished with a big grin as he was finally allowed to leave his seat, "Well you know my name what do I call you?" Rebecca had slowly made her way towards Shepard and Leos before saying "Leos...his name is Leos."

The man wrinkled up his face with the statement Rebecca had just made, "I'd rather not be given the label of easy reference for your logs. Just call me Sedrick." Shepard nodded her head and shook his hand, "Welcome aboard." She said before she motioned for both of them to follow, with Sedrick in the front and Rebecca in the back. They headed for the shuttle and went back to the Normandy so Shepard could give her debrief to the Illusive man, a small grin came across her facing knowing he would be less than pleased with her plan.


End file.
